


Do or die

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: X men apocalypse, X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel was never a horseman so he still has his feather wings, Fights, Gen, Kurt feels guilty, Reunion, Reunions, boys working stuff out, some Iron Maiden references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7332889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>X-men Apocalypse AU. Psylocke and the others don't recruit Warren for their cause, so he stays in Germany drinking himself to a stupor until Charles finds him and brings him to the school. And then he finds again the boy who ruined his life, and it's not pretty. </p><p>Kurt and Warren, aggression, guilt and a more bitter than sweet reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They brought him again, the Angel. Two, maybe three months after Kurt had arrived to America Charles had found him and sent a team to retrieve him. He'd been reluctant and fought them, drunk and angry at the whole world - but in the end he had agreed, specially when they said they could possibly do something to fix his injured wing.

Warren didn't like being surrounded by so many kids, and as weird as it may sound, he missed the fighting. It had been straightforward and made him feel alive, filled him with a sense of victory, of joy of invincibility. He didn't want to go back to the sheltered life he had with his father, to hiding and playing by the rules. He enjoyed doing things his way and with no limits, he enjoyed victory above all else. Just him and his wings and a fight.

But it had been a long time since he'd won anything. Ever since he himself had been defeated by that blue boy in Berlin, he'd never been able not just to fight, but to even fly properly again. He had deprived him from everything, even flying, he had ruined it all, made him a shell, not worthy of any fight. That boy's face was etched in his memory, so scared, so apparently harmless with those big sorry eyes, and he'd managed to cripple him completely with just one move.

Well, Dr. McCoy had some hopes of fixing it with a new serum of his, but it wasn't 100% sure that it would work. Warren was learning to fight with reduced mobility, but it wasn't easy. He was so used to using both of them that using only one... It was difficult. 

And then one day he saw him in one of the corridors, talking with some kids. The blue boy from Berlin, the guy that had maimed him, the devil himself. And he lunged at him without thinking twice, scaring everyone that was there, not caring who was in the way. Today was the day he would finally defeat that mutant and find himself again, avenge his injured wing and pride. Today the devil was going down, smothered in feathers. Warren would make sure of that and nothing would stop him. This was the reckoning day. 

Kurt had known that they had brought the Angel boy from Berlin, but had avoided him like the plague. How could he apologize for what he'd done? How could he even start to make up for his actions? He'd just wanted to not be hurt or killed by those snipers, but he'd really hurt him, he knew. Sometimes Kurt found it difficult to moderate himself. He was dangerous, he knew, a little voice inside him repeated that he was inherently evil. That the devil in him could take over and commit the most heinous crimes, because the devil was him. 

No matter how much he prayed, no matter how many angel marks he drew on himself, he could never really be good. He hurt angels without even trying. The boy from Berlin was a grim reminder of it, no matter how accepting his new friends had been. He was a monster and everyone would see him as such when they found out. Raven hadn't because of her own past mistakes but... He couldn't face the winged boy, despite how brave he'd been for so many other things. 

And then the blonde was coming at him, with a furious expression, and Kurt's instincts told him to disappear, to teleport out of there. But he wouldn't. He'd been avoiding this too long, hiding the guilt, making it grow bigger. No more. This was the day he did penance for his sins. And he would endure it no matter how vicious it was, wouldn't run. 

The blue boy didn't disappear like expected and Warren gave him all he got. He threw the boy to the floor and kicked his ribs, his stomach, his chest, all of him. And when he was done kicking Warren started with the punches, punched him in the face, repeatedly, and threw away all the people that tried to separate them, ignored that girl's voice in his head telling him to stop. And then, when he had fist high in the air, ready for another blow, Warren saw the blue mutant's face, he saw his eyes, so full of sorrow and resignation and pain. He saw the tears falling on the corners. 

And he stopped. 

The blue boy didn't move, didn't cower or try to get out. Just lay there, ready for another blow while he breathed in short irregular pants. 

“I never wanted to fight you.” He said, in almost a whisper. “I was just trying to survive.”

And even though his anger hadn't disappeared, Warren knew that he couldn't hurt the boy anymore. He was right. That boy had only done to him what he did to so many others. Only he hadn't been remorseful, hadn't tried to escape, hadn't thought about the other in the fight. Warren had wanted to fight all those mutants, unlike this boy. And Warren's sense of wrong and right might be a bit warped, but he couldn't hurt an innocent any longer, not anymore. 

He was more than that now. This place had changed him. 

And so he took off and left the mutants. Maybe he should leave them forever, seeing how fiercely the other kids had tried to defend blue boy. He left and only came back a week later, when he figured things would have cooled off to assess the situation.

Surprisingly enough, he wasn't kicked out. The Professor gave him a long speech about unacceptable behavior, about how violence was never the answer, about how he couldn't tolerate this kinds of action , how this school was about acceptance and living together. But he wasn't kicking him out because Kurt (blue boy himself) had personally asked him not to. He'd said that Warren had a right to hit him and although the Professor didn't agree, he would let Warren stay because Kurt had asked him to. 

Kurt. So blue boy had a name, and it was nothing extraordinary. You think that with a stage name like the incredible Nightcrawler everything about him would be flamboyant. But the incredible Nightcrawler was the one from the circus, the one who knew how to fight. Kurt was just a kid like him, who hadn't wanted to fight and had asked the head of the institution to let Warren stay because he had a right wanting to hurt him. 

Warren sighed, spreading his wings. Why was everything so complicated? When he'd been in the cage nothing was difficult, it was do or die. But he wasn't there anymore. 

He found out where blue boy (Kurt, his name was Kurt) had his room and knocked on his door without giving it much thought. When Kurt opened, he instinctively took a few steps back and his breathing quickened. 

“I just came to talk.” Warren said, and meant it for once. No more fighting. 

Kurt let him in, but still looked scared. 

“Thanks for not letting the Professor kick me out. And I'm sorry about your face. I really am.”

Even a week after their fight, there were still a lot of bruises marring Kurt's face, a split lip still half healed and bandages peaking out his pyjama shirt, covering his lower abdomen. 

“I'm sorry about your wing. It's what started all of this.” Kurt said, genuine sadness and regret in his bright eyes. 

“You shouldn't be sorry, you were just doing what the fight was asking you to do, trying to stay alive. Do or die, you know? I did much worse to many others before you came.”

“Still, I didn't mean to hurt you so bad.”

“You're a great fighter and you were a more than worthy rival. I was just angry because you kicked my ass so easily, something that had never happened to me before. That's why I went after you so viciously, and I shouldn't have.”

Kurt half smiled. 

“I kicked your ass, you kick my ass. Maybe we're... what's the word, even?”

“Yeah, I think we're even.”

“Maybe we could... start again?”

This kid was everything that Warren wasn't, but that didn't have to be a bad thing. He nodded and Kurt smiled, holding out his hand. 

“Hallo, I'm Kurt, Kurt Wagner.”

“And I'm Warren. And I'm really looking forward to being on the same side as you in a fight.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

And so Warren became a member of the Xavier's school but it didn't mean things were easy and that old feelings of hatred and frustration were magically erased. There was his resentment towards Kurt for the state of his wing (which hadn't been yet fixed), even if he was working on it and tried to forgive the kid for something he hadn't meant to do but done anyways. 

There was also a strange jealousy towards one of the girls who had been chosen by Apocalypse, who was now a student in the school and had been more welcoming with him than some others. Ororo. She had been chosen for greatness and had fought with a god, while he'd been deemed unfit, not good enough. And all because of that one fight when everything had gone wrong, when he lost so much. Now he was bitter, crippled and jealous of everyone. 

The students, who'd been really nice at first had changed their tune ever since he'd beat up blue boy, even if Kurt had told them that they were ok now. There was a girl in yellow who always shot daggers at him when Warren passed by and the red haired girl and the dude in shades who always followed her around always looked at him with anger, too. 

So despite some attempts at fitting in, he wasn't really having a good time in the school. The only part he enjoyed was the danger room and with his wing like that it was often more depressing than fun. So he was really considering leaving the school when Ororo came to talk to him sat on the ledge of the window in his room, next to where he was, sipping a bottle of vodka he'd smuggled in the school. 

"Hey." He started.

"Hey."

"How was it? Fighting with him? You never talk about it."

Ororo didn't like to think about it. Didn't want to think about how he fought a battle that wasn't really hers for a mad man that spoke about how they were his children but only meant to use them as bodyguards. 

"It was great at first, all that power, and feeling that you were going to change the world, improve the world for our kind.... But you realised later that it wasn't about improving things. It was only about apocalypse and his thirst for power, his need to be more powerful than anyone else in existence. He didn't care about any of us, at all, only himself."

There was a pause. Warren offered the bottle and Ororo gladly took a sip of it.

"The boy who was with us when you couldn't... join.... he was quiet, didn't speak much. But he was a team mate and I appreciated him. Well, he died in a plane crash and when Apocalypse saw him he just looked disgusted and called him useless. He tricked us with greatness and power but only used us to fight his dirty battles. And I could have hurt nice people for that man who didn't bat an eyelash at the body of his chosen one, people I like."

Warren scoffed. 

"They don't like me much." Nobody liked Warren much here, that was true. They had their reasons.

"It's just because of what you did to Kurt. I know that you supposedly said sorry to each other and all, but you still look at him like you want to kill him. And people notice and he notices and he's a sensitive kid and feels really guilty about anything regarding you. When he shouldn't feel guilty at all."

Warren frowned. This girl was his only ally in the whole school and now he was defending blue boy too?

"He deserves to be a bit guilty, even if he didn't mean to hurt me so much."

"No, he doesn't. Don't you understand? It would have been you in that plane crash, would have been you who was called useless while lying dead on the floor. By injuring your wing, Kurt saved your life. You should actually be grateful to him for wrecking you so bad."

"Really?" Blue boy hadn't wanted to help him - at all. But everyone looked at him as if he were the best people in the world. 

"His spends his nights at the lab with Dr. McCoy to help find a solution for your wing, always goes to talk to you when you're alone...And you weren't robbed of any glory because of him, just of a pointless death."

Warren took a long breath. 

"I'll think about it."

Ororo left the window and was leaving when she added something that she thought was important. 

"For what is worth, I am glad you didn't die in battle. I may not like you much yet, but I do kind of like you. Kind of."

Warren smiled. 

He spent half of the night tossing and turning imagining himself dead in the ruins of a plane crash, falling to his death and being called useless. What a nightmare. But maybe this would help him finally get rid of his hatred for blue boy, let go of fantasies of being "a chosen one" and be able to live better. 

The next day he ran into Kurt while having breakfast. 

"Hey."

Kurt gave him a shy smile. 

"Dr. McCoy wants to see you for some tests. He says he's close to a breakthrough." And Kurt looked genuinely happy for him and Warren understood a bit better why everyone seemed to be fond of him. 

"He? I think you mean we, right? Ororo told me you've been helping him."

Kurt seemed even more shy.

"I like to help."

"Well, thank you."

"Bitte."

It wasn't much, but it was a start. 

The next day in the danger room, Warren asked to be paired with Ororo and Kurt. Blue boy seemed terribly pleased and the three of them were unstoppable.

It was the dawn of a new age.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a tiny scene near the end, when Apocalypse sees Archangel and says useless and Storm seems heartbroken and so this happened. Comments give life and all feedback is very appreciated ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments make my day ;)


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